“We’ll always have Paris!” – throwback to Sporting’s Super Cup triumph over FC Porto in 1996 | OneFootball

Tomorrow, Sporting take on FC Porto at the Estádio do Dragão in an uncommon position. For the first time in decades, the Lions will start the match at the home of their northern rivals as strong favourites to win. That has almost never been the case in the modern football era, and results clearly reflect Porto’s domination of the Lisbon club whenever the two teams met outside of Alvalade.

The backdrop made a Parisian spring night in 1996 even more special for Sporting fans.

Strap up for another journey with PortuGOAL’s resident football historian Miguel Lourenço Pereira, who takes back to 1996 and a match that was a one-off in many ways for the Portuguese football… played in the French capital.

Lone triumph in a painful barren spell

We’ll always have Paris. For Sporting supporters, that iconic Casablanca line resonated deeply through the second half of the 1990s. From 1995 until the league-winning season of 1999/2000, the Leões went five seasons without a single trophy to show for themselves.

Memories lingered back to a night when the almighty FC Porto, on their way to a historic five consecutive league wins, were crushed in front of a crowd comprised mostly of Portuguese immigrants who had made France their home. It was not the first time an official tournament was played at a foreign ground but the fully-packed Parc des Princes setting made the Lisbon side’s win even more iconic.

Sporting sack Robson, Porto say “thank you”

At José de Alvalade, they were still licking their wounds after two emotionally wrecking seasons. In the summer of 1993, Sousa Cintra, the club’s president, went all-in to make the squad the best in the land and decided to change manager in mid-season, hoping to recreate the same identity and spirit of the Portuguese under-20 title-winning generation. Results hadn’t gone their way. Sporting were top of the table when Bobby Robson was sacked, and finished third under Carlos Queiroz.

The following season the Lions suffered the ignominy of losing the league title at home against their title rivals FC Porto coached by… yes, you’ve guessed it, Bobby Robson. They did lift the Portuguese Cup, after an unenthusiastic final against Marítimo, but it seemed a poor reward for such a massive investment. The squad was eventually dismantled, with Krasimir Balakov on his way to the Bundesliga, Luís Figo moving to Barcelona, and Paulo Sousa to Juventus among others who departed the club without that long-awaited league title, last won back in 1982. Cintra was out, as well, after his ambitious project floundered, so Sporting went back to their former destructive self.

The Projecto Roquette, named after the grandson of José de Alvalade and a businessman who wanted to launch a PLC so that the elites that usually governed the club would be able to control the institution unashamedly was finally put into practice. Roquette initially deferred to assume the President role – that he would eventually take in the future – so it was the right-wing high-profile politician Pedro Santana Lopes who took on the front role. He lasted for a season until his greed for power had him challenge for the leadership of the PSD party, which he lost.

The A Bola match report the day after the Paris showdown

Queiroz axed, Machado hired

Carlos Queiroz, who expected to be out of the club, accepted leadership of the team for another season. It didn’t end well. Sporting were knocked out of the Cup Winners Cup in the second round by Rapid Vienna, lost twice against Robson’s Porto who cruised to back-to-back league titles and after a goalless draw against Benfica, Queiroz was sacked.

A few weeks later Lopes appointed Otávio Machado as head coach. It was a strange decision from the start. Machado, a former Vitória FC glory who moved with José Maria Pedroto to FC Porto, where he became a stalwart for the title wins of the late 1970s, became famed as the assistant manager of Artur Jorge during his spell at Porto. He never had actual success as a manager himself and was originally hired as a sort of sports director. Sporting finished the season in third place but as the side was preparing for the 1995/96 campaign there was still a competition up grabs: the Super Cup.

All square after two-legged Super Cup

Back in those days the Portuguese Super Cup was played home and away and rarely opened the season as it became customary in the new millennium. On more than one occasion two draws had forced a third match to pick up the winner, usually played in a neutral venue. For the 1994/95 edition both FC Porto and Sporting as league and cup winners, were challenging for the title but no one was capable of winning the first two matches. A goalless draw in August 1995 at the José Alvalade was followed by a 2-2 tie two weeks later at das Antas.

For over a year, neither club was able to settle for a date for the rematch and so the decisive event only took place in April of…1996. Eight months after the sides met for the first time.

Sporting player-by-player analysis as per A Bola

Robson illness paves way for power struggle

Otávio had only recently been put in charge but things weren’t great up north either. Bobby Robson, the key man behind the Penta title-winning sequence, had been diagnosed with cancer a few months before. He often travelled back to the United Kingdom for treatment and, during those long weeks, there was a power struggle in the backroom.

Officially the assistant manager appointed by the club to lead the side was Augusto Inácio, a former Porto and Sporting legend who was part of the coaching staff on behalf of Pinto da Costa. However, Robson favoured a young man that he had brought from Sporting and whom he trusted deeply, a certain José Mourinho. Inácio and Mourinho fought neck to neck to gain influence and it affected the team’s performance which dipped during the winter months.

The side had underperformed in the Champions League group stage and despite the title win never being in doubt, there were signs that this was far from the best possible version of the Dragões. Around that time, Robson had already been informed that there might be a vacant position in Barcelona, as Johan Cruyff was about to get fired by Josep Luis Nuñez, a man who had tried to sign the then-former Ipswich manager only for him to prefer the coveted England national team manager job, recommending Terry Venables instead. Robson remained on good terms with Nuñez and he would eventually sign for the Blaugrana a few weeks after the match played in Paris. But, why Paris?

Portuguese Paris

As neither club could settle for a particular date or venue, the authorities thought it was good PR to move the match to the city known at the time as the second-most Portuguese populated city in the world, only behind Lisbon. During the 1960s and 1970s thousands of Portuguese were forced to flee from extreme poverty and hunger as most emigrated to Canada, the United States, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and, above all else, France.

The huge local community had since been a pillar of Portuguese society, coming back every summer to their former villages and towns as well as sending money back to the ones that didn’t get away. Their undying support for the Portuguese national side and football clubs had always been there and taking the match to Paris was also a way of saying thank you. It wasn’t the first time either as the year before Porto and Benfica, forced into a third match, had also met at the Parc des Princes for the final showdown, with Porto coming out winners.

Octávio seeks vindication

Porto were still deemed favourites despite Sporting having come out as winners of the Portuguese Cup semi that paved the way for the final against SL Benfica that tragically ended with a supporter killed by a very light firework launched by the rival supporters during the match. More than 30 thousand supporters packed the PSG stadium for a match that turned out to be a special vindication for Octávio, who had left Porto on bad terms with Pinto da Costa.

The newcomer picked the most reliable starting eleven, with Costinha in goal and Nelson, Naybet, Luis Miguel and Marco Aurélio forming the back line. Peixe, Afonso Martins, and Vidigal would play in the middle and Sá Pinto behind Amunike and Pedro Barbosa up front. Funnily enough, three of those players would move to Porto in the following seasons in a deal that would pave the way for Edmilson and Rui Jorge to dress the green and white.

Robson, on the other hand, didn’t have Vitor Baía at his disposal so went with the swede Eriksson in goal, accompanied by Secretário, who would later be sold to Real Madrid, Aloísio, João Manuel Pinto and Rui Jorge at the back, as Emerson, Paulinho Santos, Rui Barros, Drulovic, Edmilson and Domingos played from the middle onwards. The reigning champion’s defensive line was clearly their weak spot and Sporting dully took advantage of it.

Porto player-by-player analysis as per A Bola

Sá Pinto at double, Eriksson’s disaster-class

In the 9th minute, an Amunike run down the left wing allowed the Nigerian to topple Secretário before crossing the ball into the box where Ricardo Sá Pinto just had to shoot into an empty net. A feeble Porto defence just watched on as Sporting overran them time and time again and it was easy to feel from early on that the Lions had the upper hand on the tie. Five minutes before the break, they were at it again. A perfect cross from a free kick by Afonso Martins near the middle found Marco Aurélio, who headed it into Eriksson’s path. It seemed an occasion lost and yet, the Swede was unable to grab the ball and simply tossed it to the side. He had the bad luck that instead of clearing it, his movement sent the ball right onto Sá Pinto’s head and the Porto-born striker had the simplest of tasks to nod it in.

Sporting had been the dominant side and were once again taking advantage of a disastrous night for the Swedish international. It wasn’t to be the last. While Porto tried more with will than purpose to turn things around – with Robson’s reaction comprising of sending on Folha and Matias to send direct crosses into the box – Sporting calmly controlled the pace of the game up until the very end when a seemingly inoffensive run by Vidigal, checked by Aloísio, was transformed into a penalty kick after Eriksson fouled the midfielder. Carlos Xavier, who had replaced Pedro Barbosa in the first half, scored the third and last goal of the night, as the Sporting supporters celebrated passionately in the stands.

The win would turn out to be Octávio Machado’s last. All the momentum he brought to the side ended in the ill-fated Jamor final a month later. The following season he was sacked by Roquette – by then the president – and Sporting entered into turmoil with disastrous decisions that only ended when Augusto Inácio, who had sat on Porto’s bench on that Paris night, was appointed head coach after the club sacked the Italian Claudio Materazzi in the Autumn of 1999. Inácio then guided Sporting to their first league win since 1982 and, more crucially, the first trophy lifted since the Super Cup showdown in Paris.

It was a rare happy night for Sporting and their fans during a difficult period for the Lisbon club

New Super Cup format

For Porto, defeat was a minor accident in what was almost a perfect five-year period. They would win the following edition famously by beating Benfica 5-0 at the Lisbon club’s Estádio da Luz stadium five months on. Sporting and Porto would meet again for the 2000 Super Cup, once again after two draws forcing a replay match that was played in Coimbra in May of 2001.

Otávio goes full circle

The event forced the Portuguese Football Federation’s hand as it had become customary to play the final third match well into the season, so for the 2001/02 season, the Super Cup adopted the current model of opening the season with a single match in a previously designated venue. Porto beat Boavista in Vila do Conde. Porto’s coach that night? Otávio Machado, the man whose only trophies as manager were those two Supercup wins. Life can be funny sometimes.